My local Best Buy only has the Sport on display, so here's my question:

Does the Pilot have a feature for listening to songs according to their song ratings? (Example: Play 2 Star Songs)

If this were possible, it would give users access to 5 OTG Playlists, e.g. 1 Star = Gym, 2 Stars = Party, 3 Stars = Nostalgic, 4 Stars = Driving, 5 Stars = Chill. Of course, it would be even better if the Pilot supported the creation of multiple playlists but until then (fingers crossed ), this will do.

Here's another question:

When songs are rated on the Pilot, can the ratings be synced back to the corresponding songs on the PC? If so, which programs are compatible (WMP, Media Monkey, etc...).

I'm really intrigued by the concept of using computer generated Smart Playlists to sync my music -- It seems much faster and more efficient than using drag and drop.

In all honesty the song rating feature seems kinda pointless. You cannot search or sort by the star ratings. There is no menu for viewing all of the ratings, the only time you see it is when your playing the file.

For this reason having a separate buttons for ratings is pointless. I wish we could reprogram these buttons!

I'm not sure about syncing with PC etc. because I so far used this player as UMS device

In all honesty the song rating feature seems kinda pointless. You cannot search or sort by the star ratings. There is no menu for viewing all of the ratings, the only time you see it is when your playing the file.

Manual seemed to indicate that the Rhapsody client / Best Buy Music store app that I don't use will build playlists based on ratings and let you sync to the Pilot based on that information. Haven't tried a real program that lets you see all the tags to see what they are actually doing with the rating, though. FWIW, MediaMonkey does know about ratings, so if the Pilot does something halfway standard with that info, MM will probably understand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by covertrussian

For this reason having a separate buttons for ratings is pointless. I wish we could reprogram these buttons!

Amen! I did notice that pushing the rating button down while on the main menu toggles circle / matrix... which is better than not doing anything.

Manual seemed to indicate that the Rhapsody client / Best Buy Music store app that I don't use will build playlists based on ratings and let you sync to the Pilot based on that information. Haven't tried a real program that lets you see all the tags to see what they are actually doing with the rating, though. FWIW, MediaMonkey does know about ratings, so if the Pilot does something halfway standard with that info, MM will probably understand.

Amen! I did notice that pushing the rating button down while on the main menu toggles circle / matrix... which is better than not doing anything.

I did notice that too, that button should work in all menus! It should have a mini menu come up when you press it. I'm coming from a Creative Zen Vision: M, and I loved having the shortcut key and the File Menu key

Yes, the ratings automatically reverse sync in BBDMS/Rhapsody and if you use channels then you will automatically get better and better playlists based on your ratings. There is a bug which stops the reverse sync happening in WMP11 (ratings show up on the device in WMP11, but they don't automatically reverse sync), it will be fixed in the next F/W release. We can easily add autoplaylists based on ratings, let us know what you want and we will add it.

Yes, the ratings automatically reverse sync in BBDMS/Rhapsody and if you use channels then you will automatically get better and better playlists based on your ratings. There is a bug which stops the reverse sync happening in WMP11 (ratings show up on the device in WMP11, but they don't automatically reverse sync), it will be fixed in the next F/W release. We can easily add autoplaylists based on ratings, let us know what you want and we will add it.

You guys are awesome!!!

Now does the player support any other Playlists other then M3U's? I had some issues with those, and I don't mind having to use the device in MTP in order to create playlists. I believe MTP has a built in way of creating playlists by simply right clicking on the folder and selecting create playlist

If I set a rating on the player, does it update the tag with the new rating or simply reference some sort of library file (like the iPod)? As I use multiple operating systems, I would like the tracks to be self contained and have all of the relevant information.

Q: anyone find a good PC software player that use ratings from the Pilot?

I noticed the last posting was from 2007, but I thought I'd ask anyway!

I use the ratings toggle-spinner while I'm driving - a no-look (barely look) flick of the ratings lever, and I can mark my songs. Everyone can create their own 5 categories to use for each of the stars in the ratings.

My examples: I assign a 1-star rating to songs that need to come off the Pilot (for whatever reason). If one of mp3s has an artifact or needs to be re-ripped gets 5 stars. "Meh..." songs get two...

So far, I can only find Rhapsody's Muiscmatch that will see - and even SORT by - the ratings, but even that app won't modify the ratings.

Anyone find any apps that'll work with Insignia ratings? Free or fee-based makes no difference.